And the hypocrisy continues

Interesting email today from one of the “advocates” of climate change.  Said advocate noted he does not read this blog because he can’t take the face-painting and head-banging (I think he has me confused with some other site, but who knows?).  Now, if I recall correctly (and I do because I have all kinds of backup material), one of the objections to skeptics is that they don’t read the actual science pages, only their own pages, to avoid learning anything new.  WOW, now I get confirmation that advocates do EXACTLY THE SAME THING.  Isn’t that most interesting?  Apparently advocates are afraid of the truth, right?  I mean, that’s their interpretation of people who avoid opposing views, so it’s not like I made it up.  It’s their standard.  Okay, it’s been known for years and there’s really no way to fix it, but I do feel obligated to point out that climate science really isn’t about the science and only about agreement whenever evidence drops in.

As an aside, there are some awesome mammatus clouds this morning, but it’s too dark yet to get picture.

 

Another thing I should address is people who disagree with me telling me to take a class in science presuming that if I had taken science I would immediately recognize how indisputable their position is.  I will list the classes I have taken and if you have one that isn’t on the list, I will consider it.  For those of you who change the subject or tell someone else to take a science or physics class, I can’t reach someone who ignores his/her own requirements.

High school—chemistry, physics, geometry, trigonometry, algebra

College—general chemistry, analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, instrumental chemistry, physical chemistry, statistics for non-science majors, statistics for science majors, calculus  (several biology classes also)

Online—science based course on climate change from MIT

As for those saying to “read a research paper”, been there, done that too.  I am always open for suggestions on what papers I could read.

 

Scientific Badger

Statistical significance and climate change

I am linking to a blog post on statistical significance that may help explain why I am such a skeptic on the whole “human caused warming” claim:

Here’s an excerpt:

“Which is to say that according to my real, genuine, mathematically legitimate, scientifically fabricated scientific statistical scientific model (calculated on a computer), I was able to produce statistical significance and reject the “null” hypothesis of no cooling. Therefore there has been cooling. And since cooling is the opposite of warming, there is no more global warming. Quod ipso facto. Or something.

I was led to this result because many (many) readers alerted me to a fellow named Lord Donoughue, who asked Parliament a question which produced the answer that “the temperature rise since about 1880 is statistically significant.” Is this right?

Not according to my model. So who’s model, the Met Office’s or mine, is right?

Well, that’s the beauty of statistics. Neither model has to be right; plus, anybody can create their own.”

Read on: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=8061

The post explains very clearly, at least to me, why statistical significance may not be significant at all.  Another important excerpt:

“His model, which is frankly absurd, is to say the change in global temperatures is a straight linear combination of the change in “anthropogenic contributions” to temperature plus the change in “natural variability” of temperature plus the change in “measurement error” of temperature. (Hilariously, he claims measurement error is of the order +/- 0.03 degrees Celsius; yes, three-hundredths of a degree: I despair, I despair.)”  (Bold is mine)

Proxies cannot possibly yield the accuracy required for the claims made by climate science concerning warming.  They simply lack the degree of accuracy needed.  We really can’t even measure the accuracy except in very modern times.  Perhaps if we gave the proxy to 25 unrelated scientists and had them all give their interpretation of the proxy, it would become apparent that this is not an accurate measurement.  If you lack accurate measurements, then your conclusion cannot be said to be accurate based on those measurements.  There are too many assumptions and too much use of “estimated” and proxy data to give any kind of accurate result, except by random chance.  We simply do not have the data for these types of claims.

Scientific badger

Why consensus research is flawed

http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/cooking-stove-use-housing-associations-white-males-and-the-97#comments

This site has a very detailed write-up on Cook and further back, some on Lewandowsky.  He’s quite thorough in his explanation about why the research is bad.

(Note:  Yes, I know he says he “believes” there is a consensus, and he believes that some of AGW is valid.   It is not necessary to agree with every argument a person puts forward.  His treatment of the psychology aspect of the consensus is very good and worth reading.)

It’s not warming, it’s dying

A new campaign from the denizens of death group, brought to you in an effort to scare you into carbon taxes and one world energy policies.

Interesting campaign. First, if it’s not warming, what’s it dying from? Second, after billion of years of evolution, ice ages, hot houses and climate flip-flops, we are to believe that this time it’s for good–all over, dead as a doornail, kaput? Wow, humans accomplished what asteroid strikes, frozen oceans and five mass extinctions could not. We’re here and witnessing the death of the earth. Oh, wait….you mean destroyed it? We’re more powerful than asteroids? Amazing when you think about t.

One would expect another response could be–great, party, have a good time while it lasts. Crank up the A/C, buy a Hummer and go out in style. You know, like the denizens of death heroes Al Gore and Bill McKibben. You don’t see these folks cutting back, do you?

The button used in the campaign is itself about as clever as….well, I can’t really come up with anything that simplistic and inane. A button that goes from black to green on a gradient? Really? Had they gone with Hansen’s boiling oceans, now that would have been graphically terrifying. Maybe a 3D spherical look would have helped. How much mining and manufacturing went into producing these things? Just pushing us that much closer to “its death”.

With advocates like this…..

(Question-off topic and I don’t know the answer: If what humans do to the landscape causes global warming, and we do know weather patterns are affected by landscapes, why didn’t the dinosaurs really mess up the climate with the huge amounts of vegetation they consumed?)